[Trainer-Talk] Teaching adults who don't speak English

[Brian Vogel]

What age range are we talking about here?

I'll probably be crucified for saying it, but focusing on Braille for
adults, particularly early on, is just a huge waste of time.  I've said it
before, and I'll say it again, but I know of very few individuals who can
pick up any significant proficiency in Braille as adults, even if they've
been blind for years.

I'm also a big believer, where possible, of doing any teaching for an ELL
individual in their first language initially.  The hurdles involved in
trying to learn anything, and technology in particular, in a language you
do not speak are virtually certain to be insurmountably high.

You ask, "What if you don't have a lot of time to work with them and
progress is slow because they have a ton of barriers?"  I don't take that
as a rhetorical, and the answer to that question requires a careful
analysis as to how much time you have and whether anything of functional
value can be achieved within it.  For students like this the minimum time
frame is months, many months, and if you're told you have, say, six weeks
to work with them, sadly, the best course of action is not to do so.  You
leave them, and yourself, with feelings of disappointment and failure
because you simply cannot achieve anything functional in that short a
timeframe if we're talking about someone who is a rank beginner.

In my years as a speech-language pathologist (now retired) and a tech tutor
(ongoing) I've learned the hard way that most adult students can only take
on so much information at one time, and it always requires more repetition
than initially expected before basic proficiency is established.  Trying to
make someone learn "too many things at once" often means they learn none of
them at all, at least in a way that proves useful and helpful to them.  And
this is when only a single language is involved.

If ever there were a case where "picking one's battles, stategically" for
learning would be best, this one is it.

Brian